Fabio Quartararo end🤪ed this week’s MotoGP Sepang test third on the timesheets having set his best ever lap of the Sepang International Circuit.

The Frenchman had previously not broken the 1:57 barrier at the Malaysian venue, b♕ut he was able to dip into the 1:56s – the only non-Ducati rider to do so – on the final day of this week’s test.

“Very ha🅠ppy,” Quartไararo said at the end of Friday in Sepang.

“My fastest lap was qualifying last ꦜyear was a 1:57.5, so I think the gap is more th💮an 0.8 seconds.

“I was saying that from 2019 t🙈o 2024 we improve 0.6 seconds, and from 2024 to 2025 0.8 seconds. Of cou⛦rse, we can be happy.

“We need to stay calm, it’s only th🍃e test, but I think it’s quite good.

📖“Last year in the test Pecco [Francesco Bagnaia] made a 1:56.6 or 1:56.5, and this is more or less the lap time that they did this year, so I think we can be pretty happy.”

Quartararo’s enthusiasm about his one-lap speed was amplified by the context of 2024, in which qualifying was the most diffi🎐cult part of the 🌸weekend for Yamaha.

“The ♐worst last year was not the race,” Quartararo explained. “It was especially one lap last year that was the problem because always we started super-far [back] and it was super-difficult to overtake.

“Right now, before I made my first ti𒁏me attack, I knew I was going to make a 1:56, because with Maio [Massimo Meregalli, Monster Energy Y💯amaha team manager] we make the joke the first day we arrive here that we will make a 1:56, but every day we were getting closer and closer and in the end it was the reality today.

“But last year the problem was that you pu💫t a new tyre and you don’t know the lap time that you’re going to do.

“On one lap today, 🃏in the past thr🐈ee days, it was really good.”

Fabio Quartararo explains Yamaha improvement

Quartararo put the improvement in performance 🔯down to a combination of his own riding style adj🌺ustments as well as technical updates to the YZR-M1.

“It 🌄looks similar but it’𒆙s not the same,” Quartararo said of the 2025 M1.

“Basically, it’s many electronics that have chang♈ed, the way I ride – we have new things on the bike.

“Of course it’s difficult to see wh💧at’s new, but lap-time-wise we can see that we were much quicker than last year.”

Although the c𒆙h൩anges have improved Quartararo’s feeling in some areas of his riding, the key issue from recent years remains.

“We improved a lot our f🎉eeling going into the corners, on change of direction also,”🍬 the 2021 World Champion said.

“But our weak point is grip.

“Today the track was really grippy, you can see it’s black from rubber.ꦏ I will not say our lap time is fake because last year it was th꧅e same and we were one second from P1 – now we are 0.3 seconds [away].

“I’m looking forward to seeing when the track will be really low grip conditio🍨ns; this is the worst conditions for us.”

Overall, though, Quartararo clearly feelꦆs that his has been Yamaha’s best off-season since he joined the factory team in 2021.

“I think that every 🐟year, especially fro꧃m 2022–2024, we make one step, but Ducati and the others make two or three,” he said.

“I think this year we have reached to make much more steps. I think it’s a different riding style from 2019 or 2021, but I feel the bike is fast, so the riding style is slightly different from the past but I think it’s the first year that we managed to close the ⛦gap.

“In the past, we just improved but the others improved; or we improve🎃d but the others even more. Now I think that the gap i🔯s closer.”

Stronger not only over one lap

Quartararo’s enthusiasm for the new Yamaha package was n⛎ot limited to its one-lap performance, however.

The French rider was able to make a couplꦕe of runs of multiple laps in succession w🌱hile showing pace only a couple of tenths away from that of the leading Ducatis.

“It was not really a S🐬print simulation; I had to make six laps with one setting and six laps with another setting, with new tyres,” the French rider explained.

“It was good. I think we have to consider that last year we were P11, P12 here, and now we are looking at the pace of Marc [Marquez], Pecco [Francesco Bagnaia], and Alex [Marquez⛦] who are the fastest around here.

“So, I think the gap is quite big but I’m pretty happy about the lap t🔯ime that we did, es💎pecially because it was not only one lap and that’s it.”